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Date:      Tue, 22 Oct 1996 08:02:35 -0400
From:      "Matthew A. Gessner" <mgessner@aristar.com>
To:        Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Cc:        joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: install on Dell P60
Message-ID:  <326CB7DB.2781E494@aristar.com>
References:  <199610211904.MAA06325@phaeton.artisoft.com>

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Terry Lambert wrote:
> 
> > >   Well, the installation goes fine, but when I try to reboot, my system
> > > does a hard reboot after the first couple of /-\|/ go by.
> > >
> > >   When I try to boot from the floppy to wd(1,a)/kernel, I get further,
> > > but eventually the kernel panics.
> >
> > Surprising that Linux worked on it, but i would try making the memory
> > timing more relaxed.
> 
> Disable caching.  Then work your way up to disabling "writeback"
> 
> The old Dell P60's (are there new Dell P60's?  I don't think so) used
> the old Saturn I chipset.
> 
> The Old Saturn I chipset does not do a cache invalidate cycle for PCI
> bus master DMA devices.
> 
> Is it time to once again suggest detecting faulty hardware, and add an
> explicit BINVD for the DMA target area in the competion routine?
> 
>                                         Terry Lambert
>                                         terry@lambert.org
> ---
> Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
> or previous employers.
Now this is really odd:

a) I don't have access to the timing or the caching.

b) When I booted from the floppy last night and did

	wd(1,a)/kernel

IT BOOTED JUST FINE!  ????

So the next step is to try to load booteasy onto the first drive.
man -k boot doesn't tell me anything, nor do any other combinations of
other related words; how do I change it from the command line w/o having
to reinstall BSD (sorry for the obviously ignorant question; I'm not new
to Unix, but I am pretty new to complete and total system manipulation
like this).

I can't figure out why FreeBSD didn't load in the first place from
booteasy.  Is there something maybe in booteasy that causes it to behave
funny on my particular machine?

Thanks all!  I think you folks that are working on the development of
FreeBSD are doing a bang-up job and get criticized far too much by those
who don't appreciate the magnitude of what you're trying to do/have
done/are doing.

We're using FreeBSD here to do some very simple database work (nothing
fancy) for dial-up use for data collection, and it is SO MUCH EASIER to
do this type of work from FreeBSD than it would be under any kind of
windoze system.

Thanks again,

	Matt

--
Matthew Gessner, Computer Scientist, <mgessner@aristar.com>
Aristar, Inc.
302 N. Cleveland-Massillon Rd.
Akron, OH 44333
Voice (330) 668-2267, Fax (330) 668-2961



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